A Cultural Analysis of the Grandmother

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of the contemporary American grandmother, exploring the meanings of the role for 58 grandmothers who are responding to the divorces of their children. Although the literature suggests that the grandparenting role is unpatterned and relatively normless, these respondents retain uniform conceptions of the traditional grandmother although they have been modified in congruence with their own middle-age norms. The role is primarily regulated by explicit proscriptive norms rather than by prescriptive norms that are vague and diffuse.